The use of laundry machines, for example laundry washing machines (i.e. machines which can only wash and rinse laundry), laundry driers (i.e. machines which can only dry laundry), and washing-drying machines (or washer/driers i.e. machines which can wash and also dry laundry), is very widespread and indispensable.
In the present description the term “laundry washing machine” will refer to laundry washing, laundry driers, and laundry washing-drying machines.
Typically, the laundry machines have a housing casing and an access door for inserting the laundry within a rotatable drum contained in the housing casing.
Known laundry machines may be of the front-loading type or of the top-loading type.
A front-loading laundry machine typically comprises a parallelepiped casing or cabinet provided, in one of its lateral walls, with a loading opening for loading and unloading the laundry in/from the rotatable drum contained in the cabinet and having an opening in correspondence of the loading opening formed in the cabinet; a door is hinged to the cabinet for opening/closing the loading opening. The hinge is generally composed of at least a hinge base element and at least one arm connected to the hinge base element.
In conventional laundry machines, the door, typically having a circular shape, has a circular porthole window engaged in a frame element.
The frame element is typically made of plastic, while the porthole window is usually made of a transparent material, so as to allow a user to see the interior of the laundry machine during the operation thereof (for example for checking that the right washing/drying cycle is taking place regularly). Preferably, such transparent material is a heat high endurance material (for example, glass) adapted to withstand the relatively high temperatures to which the laundry machine is subject during its operation. When the door is opened, the laundry to be washed and/or dried can be loaded directly into a rotatable drum and the washed/dried laundry can be removed therefrom.
Possible examples of known doors for laundry machines are provided, for example, in the UK patent No. GB 941134, and in the international patent application No. WO2006/009363.
In the laundry machines known in the art, when the door is to be opened, in order to allow its rotation around the hinge to come to a relative high degree of rotation for facilitating the insertion/removal of the laundry in/from the laundry machine, the door may presents some openings in its external frame, towards the hinge side. Otherwise, in the absence of such openings, the external frame of the door remains at a close contact with the hinge arms, reducing the door opening angle and consequently rendering quite difficult any laundry insertion/removal operation.
Such openings may present a potential risk of injuries for the user. In fact, during the loading/unloading operation of the laundry machines and, in particular, during the opening/closing of the door, a user's fingers may remain entrapped in said openings and crushed between the door and the hinge. Moreover, such openings may represent esthetic defects in the door frame, unpleasant to see by the user.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a laundry machine wherein the risk for the user to have injuries while loading/unloading the laundry machine due to the presence of said apertures in the door frame is reduced.